Gatecrash
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day seven hundred and thirty-five: Alternate Quinn finds herself plucked from her world, one rainy night.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 34th cycle. Now cycle 35!_

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><p><strong>YEAR TWO ANNIVERSARY CYCLE!<strong> - It's now been two years since I've started this Gleekathon, and like last year I'm dedicating the cycle to commemorating my 21 favorite one shots or chapter stories from year two (up to the point where I did the planning ;)) A number of those I was very attached to, but left sad to see may have fallen through the cracks, so it seems fair they should get a second shot ;)

Last year there were three categories, but this year I've added two new ones: **Prequel**, **Sequel**, **POV Swap**, and now **Alternate Ending**, and **Additional Scenes**. In no particular order... **Today's story** is a POV Swap on #613 "Let the flood wash in" _a AU!Jesse, Rachel, Quinn + series story originally posted on June 26th 2011._

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><p><strong>"Gatecrash"<br>Alternate!Quinn, Jesse, Rachel, AU!Jesse/Quinn  
>Berry-St series extra <strong>

Quinn had needed a break from the whole This Is Your Freaky Friday Life situation she had going on with the displaced Jesse and Rachel. She was helping them, because she didn't have much of a choice… and because she wanted her own Jesse back… and because leaving them on their own would probably have made it worse, but she could only take so much before she had to step back and take a breath. So she'd decided to go swimming. Back in elementary school, she'd been the best swimmer in her class, dreamed of joining the high school team, just like her big sister had… And then she'd actually gone to high school, and this 'plan' was swapped out for pom poms and a circulation-cutting ponytail. Every once in a while though, she'd come back to the pool, to clear her mind.

They had no idea what they were doing. They could kid themselves and pretend like the solution would just appear to them, but how was that going to happen? It wouldn't drop in their lap, and research had gotten them absolutely nothing except more desperation that they would be stuck like this forever, and that she would never see Jesse again, only to be stuck with this other guy who looked like him…

On top of that, she had to wonder about… her own double. She'd tried not to find out too much about her, though facts would trickle out every once in a while, either by accident or necessity – they would say something, then stop speaking all of a sudden so she knew… they'd been on the verge of saying something about the other Quinn and caught themselves in time. But before long, being left in the dark would drive her crazy and she'd make them tell her. She knew about the baby – it had freaked her out, but she was never going to meet this girl, it wasn't her life… The one that had been hard was finding out about her family. She knew her parents had split up, but not what had led to it. Jesse didn't know either, while Rachel had snapped the 'information flow' shut… some things she was better off not knowing, she said. That hadn't helped her. No matter what the four of them had brought as far as changing either world, Quinn's world wasn't too changed… her parents were still her parents… That meant whatever had brought her parents apart in this other world, it could do the same to her parents in her world, it could already be happening… boiling under the surface and she was about to get blindsided.

It hit her out of nowhere, so fast she lost focus and had to stop mid-lap across the pool, wading about… She blinked… She didn't know what was happening to her, she had been doing fine and now she felt faint… exhausted… like she needed to sleep… She needed to get out of that pool and fast, but her limbs felt so heavy, eyes wanted to shut, and now whatever she had left of consciousness was settling into the terror that she wasn't going to make it back out of the water, that she was going to drown, and…

She faded away… This was it… She was…

She gasped, then coughed as she felt more water pouring into her mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut, arms trying to find something to hang on to… and then she realized she was on solid land again, but… something wasn't right, which was saying a lot, considering she had been on the verge of drowning just a second ago. She was on the ground, but there was air… cold air… and water, still water, pouring over her. And when she opened her eyes, above her all she saw was darkness… Having been submerged a moment ago, it had taken her a few seconds to remember she could stand, or at least sit up. Rain… that was the water; she was sitting in the parking lot… of McKinley High… in torrential rain…

She had to roll over, arms and legs quaking and quivering as she made herself stand up… Her bathing suit had been replaced regular clothes, now sticking to her just like her hair was plastered to her face, her neck… She could see the door just ahead, and though the wave of exhaustion had left her, the trauma of… whatever had just happened… had left her shaky on her legs. When she got there she was so ready to find warmth… and dryness… she had lost grip of the door and the wind made it slam against the wall. She jumped, hurried in, but then stopped…

How had she gotten there? The pool was nowhere near the school… she didn't remember getting out of the pool, getting dressed… driving fifteen minutes…

Then she heard a voice, and footsteps… squeaking footsteps, like someone who'd just been in the rain, like her... She just stood there, frozen in place, no idea what she'd find, and then… there they were… Jesse and Rachel… "Quinn, what are you…" Jesse started to speak, drawing her attention to him, and then something happened: he continued to speak, and she got chills. "I know I said we'd wait to talk to her, but I thought I could try… It worked, I got her talking," he was smiling, while her mouth just hung half opened… No… It couldn't be…

Just listening to what he was actually saying, it might have clued her in, but that wasn't it. She'd been staring at that other Jesse long enough now she knew the way he acted, how he spoke, how he was completely unlike her own Jesse… and she remembered her own Jesse… It had been some time that she hadn't seen him, but the moment she saw him, heard him, and… her heart responded, like a key that would activate when put in the vicinity of the lock it belonged to… And her key had just gone live.

"Jesse?" her voice croaked, after the pool, the rain… the shock… Oh, what if she'd died? What if she'd drowned in that pool and now she was… just imagining the place she wanted to be, the person she wanted to see, and he wasn't really…

"Quinn…" he spoke, and she felt her knees buckle… she felt them… This was real… he was actually… standing there… She felt her legs spring back to life and sprint to get to him just as he did. When his arms locked around her, at least for this time, everything else that had come to pass on that… afternoon which was now apparently evening… just didn't exist anymore. They pulled back to look at one another, and seeing his eyes, finally his eyes, she just laughed… he did too… She stretched on her toes and kissed him.

Later of course she'd have to realize that she'd been transported into this other world, that she was trapped just like they were, but there was a time and a place for that, and it wasn't now… If she had ever doubted that everything they'd gone through to end up together had been worth it, the relief and the joy on his face and in his eyes told her everything she needed to know.

THE END

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><p><strong>AN: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
><strong>**In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
><strong>******always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!******


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